1998 B*Witched: C'Est La Vie

I was sorely tempted to leave my review at that. Full stop. Conscience, however, got the better of me - I've set myself a brief to comment on these UK number one singles and that's what I'm going to do. Leaving it to somebody else is the easy option, even if, like in this case, it would be incredibly convenient (not least to let the mask slip to reveal someone else's face). Niven's novel is set in exact same late nineties, UK music scene I'm writing about now, and while he's not specifically talking about B*Witched (he's actually referring to a fictitious girl band called 'Songbirds'), he may as well be. I've pondered the question as to whether the charts are worse than they used to be and whether, like GCSE's, number ones are dumbing down? ARE they easier to 'get' than back in the good old days? DO they actually 'mean' anything anymore? I'm not going to re-hash previous musings here, let's stick to the facts - at the risk of giving out a 'spoiler', I can say that we are going to meet B*Witched four times before the decade is out. Each of the band's first four singles got to number one - an impressive feat in itself, but made more impressive by the fact that they went straight in at number one. With a bullet. All four of them. But rather than take my hat off in admiration, I've been scrolling back over the distance we've travelled and it's sobering to realise that no other artist - good, bad or ugly - have managed this. What's more sobering is the roll call of acts with no small amounts of fame and critical success who don't appear on these pages at all. Ever. And yet the first four singles from B*Witched got to number one. Straight in. With a bullet. So, ARE number ones dumbing down? DO they have meaning anymore? I have a view, but I'm going to save it for later. For now, try a little experiment for yourself - find somebody born at any time during the past twenty years and ask them how many B*Witched songs they can name (if you really want to push it, ask them to name one of the members). If my experience is anything to go by then you'll be lucky if they even remember them at all. Four number ones. Straight in. With a bullet. That's undeniable, something that will be recorded in the record books forever more. But these songs have not endured. Like an impressive Victorian pillar gravestone and monument, the person and memories behind the fact will like as not be lost to time with no legacy other than a set of statistics etched into a large chunk of marble that suggests they once had some importance. Someone was born, someone lived and someone died. A girl group released four singles and had four number ones. The dust blows forward and the dust blows back.

An all girl band from Dublin, if All Saints were the Spice Girls' bigger sisters, all left home and shacked up with boyfriends then B*Witched were their younger siblings, forever tagging along with an annoying 'me too' whine and decked out in pigtails and dribble. And with that in mind, 'C'est La Vie' is all sticky sugar and candy floss fresh off Willy Wonka's conveyer belt, shorn of edge and attitude and packaged by Oompah Loompahs as faceless as they are interchangeable. Because in truth it doesn’t matter who was 'in' B*witched - this is a music created by flipchart in a marketing department and approved by accountants. As long as the commodity boxes of 1) young 2) female 3) attractive in a girl next door type were ticked then job done.*

Such acts though were ten a penny by now and so to add a different spin to the pot add 4): Irish. Ah yes, Irish. This pop comes tinted green and seasoned with an Irish jig and reel to cement the 'individuality' of the product the way Geri Spice squeezing her arse into a Union Jack dress cemented hers, with an emphasis on their accents and some line dancing in the video to hammer it home. Is 'C'est La Vie' good pop? Sadly, no. It's a vacuous three minutes of lame double entendre ("I'll show you mine if you show me yours") and a lazy hook that makes no sense at all ("Say you will say you won't. Say you'll do what I don't. Say you're true, say to me c'est la vie") With nothing to love and nothing to hate, 'C'est La Vie; is musical feng shui that self servingly exists to soundtrack four young girls stepping up to the microphone to sing it in a whole that's as much of a functional product as a microwave ready meal. And just as tasteless.

* And not that young either - despite the jailbait image, nobody here was under nineteen (Sinead O'Carroll was twenty five fergawdsake). All part of the packaged commodity I guess.